Browse Topics
Childhood
Foreclosure
Our failing family farm had two trailer homes sitting vacant. To make ends meet, my parents rented one to Valerie, a pregnant, unwed twenty-three-year-old with tomato red hair who worked at the Kroger deli, where my mother was the manager.
July 2008
Chance Encounters
Thirty-fifth high-school reunion, fly-fishing, the 1960 World Series
May 2008
Season Of My Grandfather
My mother, my stepfather, my five-year-old brother, and I lived in a sunny three-room tenement in Brooklyn, New York. The walls of our foyer were lined floor to ceiling with my mother’s books, and I read as many as possible, entering a trancelike state in which everything else floated on the edges of my awareness.
April 2008
Stealing
Five packs of Red Vines, Uncle Wiggily’s Garden Patch, Jackie Robinson
April 2008
Blessing Of The Animals
Sheba is just the right height for a toddler to pat her on the head with a fist, or walk under the archway of those enormous legs. Eventually the girl will haul herself onto Sheba’s back and squeal, “Giddyap!” and the dog will comply, moving slowly, swaying like a camel.
November 2007
Airports
False-bottomed aerosol cans, the “Chattanooga Choo-Choo,” a blue telephone-and-address book
November 2007
Trash
It didn’t occur to me until recently that if I’d seen my mother and Al going to the graveyard, then Miss Lottie had seen them too. Anyway, one day Miss Lottie called me “trash.” I was ringing up her wine, Mogen David 20/20. People call it “Mad Dog.” It’s cheap and strong, and Miss Lottie bought it at least three times a week.
September 2007
Rivals
Morel mushroom hunting, midnight sledding on Suicide Hill, eraser racing
September 2007
Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
Subscribe Today